Monday, April 23, 2012

It's this wonderful bread made with pork drippings and only freaking fantastic!!!!!

I used to buy this old school Italian loaf in a Soho bakery years ago, that is no longer in business. They probably died from eating too much lard.

It was the BEST loaf of bread ever, loaded with pancetta and some of the salty fat. Ah, organic and healthy.

Jim Lahey has a recipe for lard bread made with pancetta, but I used good old smoked slab bacon and sauteed onions and rosemary to make this loaf an amazing piece of art.

I like to plan on baking my bread at 9 a.m. on Sunday to have it ready for lunch, so it's nice and warm. I usually start the process on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. to be exact, so 24 hours later we are in business.

By the time you wake up the next morning, this thing is alive. It has tripled in size and wants to escape from the glass bowl. It has a life of its own and wants to get on with it.

I sauteed the bacon pieces with the onions, then cooled and drained them on paper towels.
Mixed them in with the flour, yeast and salt and the baby is on its way.

Cook the bacon and onions in a large nonstick skillet on medium-low heat for about 10 minutes. Drain and cool the mixture on paper towels.

In a large glass bowl, mix the flour, salt, yeast. Once the bacon onion mixture is cooled, add that with the rosemary to the flour mixture. Add a about a tablespoon of the lard or fat from the pan.

Now add the cool water and mix with your hands to form a nice sticky dough and form into a ball.

Leave in the glass bowl and cover tightly with plastic wrap and leave on the counter in a cool dry place for about 18 hours (I usually do 24 hours, depending when I wake up in the a.m.).

When you check on it, the dough will have spread in the bowl and doubled in size.

Using a rubber spatula, scrape out the dough onto a floured surface and fold it a few times, turning it over and forming another ball of dough.

Now you are supposed to let it rest in a dishtowel for another hour or two for the second rise, but for some reason, this loaf did not need it.
I put it in the oven almost right away. It was ready to go.

17 comments:

Hi Stacey,Now THIS bread looks fantastic! And seems easy enough to make. I have a recipe for bacon fat cookies which are great so I can only imagine this bread has an amazing flavor,too! Thanks for sharing!

Oh yum! There are a couple of Italian specialty shops near me where my grandmother used to buy lard bread all of the time when she was alive. Every now and then my brother (who lives in her old house) buys it for family occasions, but people are just too afraid for their health to buy it more often. Now you have me craving it. I could go to the store, or I could consider baking it myself when I have the time.

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I am an antiques dealer & appraiser during the day.........a recipe writer and cook by night. I try and use local, seasonal foods to create delicious meals.
I live 20 miles from downtown Manhattan, so have access to some great markets & restaurants. Check out my daily recipes. P.S. I AM NOT THE PITA CHIP LADY. :)